Quasars & Dwarves

Customizing DND

A while ago I wanted to make a custom TTRPG ruleset inspired by the game Stellaris that I could play with my friends, using DND as a base structure as that was the tabletop I was the most familiar with. It started with a particular "scene" I imagined that portrayed the accentuated importance of the party dynamic being the forefront of this system. After this, the first thing I made was the ruleset for the system and ran it by some of my friends and got some players for a playtest. Following this, to minimize confusion and ensure a much smoother play experience for the testers, I decided it would be beneficial to make a "simple" program that allowed me to streamline conveying specific information as a DM to the players, this arose because one of the key pieces of information that the players should be aware of came in the form of a number and in my experience in TTRPG's, doing math on the fly for many players can slow down the game immensely. While I was making the program, I was planning the test session, The scenario I wanted the players to run through was mainly to test the systems of the ship and how the pace of combat works, with less emphasis being on RP, as there aren't really rules dedicated to that, it would just be conveyed differently through the "theatre of the mind."

The "Scene"

The whole idea was spurred on by some thought I had from the perspective of a group of scientists on a space vessel returning to a home system, filled with player characters as the scientists and seeing an Awakened Empire (Stellaris term for technologically advanced empire) warp into their system and laying waste and forcing the players to flee. The mental image I had when having this thought I felt was really cool and I wanted to try to make a system that could allow for situations like that to happen or have players go out and survey asteroids and bring back weird crystals to analyze and gain an insight to an older time or something. Using the burst of motivation I got from this, I started the ruleset.

The Ruleset

Clarify Rules for space combat
The changes to player stats
How class abilities interact with the systems in space.
The player's Vessel
Spell and attack changes

Explaining Ruleset To Friends

It's time to playtest!

Stellaris D&D

Google Sheets Test

I made a google sheets sheet that allowed me to test potential Party Comps to account for what kind of harmful challenges I should limit myself to.
It was quite useful and also pretty fun to make something like this.

This obviously wasn't the only thing I tested, but I may dive more into the Google Sheet another time.

The Test Session Scenario

To the right you can look through the document I made to prepare for the session. I have a few thoughts on it

I love how much I prepared
- Though I prepared so much more than I needed to
It is the most I have ever written for a session
There isn't too much more to say here, writing the player's introductions was one of the more enjoyable aspects of this session preparation.

35 Systems Requiring Exploration

The Program

The image above is what prompted me to make a specific thing for the session. I wanted a way to convey the important Vessel information in a non obtrusive way whilst I DM'd on discord.

I made a small little tool to help me (images below.)

I wanted to remove the need for bookkeeping that comes with every session of a TTRPG, and all the crucial information that this system introduced I wanted to show the players easily with little confusion.
I streamed this application via Discord.
It was fun to make the animations that added some extra flair to the session overall, as the programs auxiliary purpose was flair for the session.
The program I made was very messy and hardcoded for the session itself and was very serviceable for what I needed it for.

imgur.comImgur: The magic of the Internet

Post Session Thoughts

First and Foremost the best thing to come out of this session was all my friends had a good time.
- I completely forgot to ask the players to answer a few questions I had written down because the session went for as long as a DND session is want to do.
I had a discussion on what the players thought about the system overall and they said it was a lot of fun
- Some potential changes for future is reworking the Personal Ships mechanic to be more about invading enemy Vessels and just somewhat removing the extra management of having the extra personal ships.
  - As for each personal ship that was out it seemed to abstract the time spent on turns. This could also be said about the rogues invasion turns, but it came down to a talk of would we prefer the invasion of Vessels or the Personal Ships. All the players agreed on
I did a lot of prep for this session and it was pretty worth it to hear my friends be impressed by things and stuff and have a great time

Going Forward

This system could be abstracted further into more of its own system and remove some of the distinctions and limitations attaching it to DND can have.
I definitely want to take a bit of a break before diving into this again.
I want to remake the program to be a more versatile tool that I could share among my friends.

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